LEN - www.lankaenews.com | Where is the money that was stolen from us? How can we get it back?

Where is the money that was stolen from us? How can we get it back?

-By Ruwan Weerakoon

(Lanka-e-News -2026.July.10, 5.00 PM) Sri Lanka's President, Anura Kumara Dissanayake, has now held office for one year and nine months. Yet the question burning in the hearts of ordinary citizens remains unanswered: where is our stolen money?

The country's economic collapse was not an accident of fate. It was the product of systemic, unpunished corruption by past rulers who treated the national treasury as a personal piggy bank. While the politicians responsible face no hardship — shielded by the billions they smuggled into overseas safe havens — ordinary citizens and their children continue to bear the cost of a depleted economy.

I. How the Funds Are Extracted and Moved

Corrupt politicians and their proxies rarely move stolen money out of the country through conventional bank transfers. Instead, they exploit structural loopholes in trade, finance and corporate law:

Trade-based money laundering. The most common method is transfer mispricing — over-invoicing imports or under-invoicing exports. Corrupt officials collude with compliant trading companies to falsify documentation, moving capital across borders disguised as ordinary commerce.

Hundi/hawala networks. These informal, unregulated value-transfer systems allow cash handed over in Colombo to be paid out in Dubai, London or Singapore by an underground broker, leaving no trace in the formal banking system.

Offshore shell companies and layering. Once funds leave the country, front men and legal proxies build multiple layers of anonymous shell companies across secrecy jurisdictions to obscure the "beneficial owner" — the politician behind the money.

II. Where the Stolen Wealth Is Deposited

Financial intelligence trackers, leaked records such as the Panama and Pandora Papers, and international vulnerability indices point to recurring destinations for Sri Lankan illicit flows:

Singapore and Dubai. Singapore is a favoured hub for outward wealth management; Dubai draws liquid assets and real estate investment, aided by corporate structures that have historically offered high anonymity.

Secrecy jurisdictions. The British Virgin Islands, Seychelles and Mauritius are frequently used to base the parent shell companies that hold assets elsewhere.

Western real estate. London and parts of North America absorb stolen wealth converted into high-value property — turning liquid, traceable funds into clean, appreciating physical assets.

Switzerland. Historical leaks, including the Swiss Leaks disclosures, tied tens of millions of dollars linked to Sri Lankan nationals to private Swiss accounts, though tighter regulation has narrowed this route in recent years.

III. How the Money Is Traced

Domestically, the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) of the Central Bank functions as the nerve centre, monitoring Suspicious Transaction Reports filed by commercial banks for unusual spikes, sudden offshore investments, or opaque ownership shifts involving Politically Exposed Persons. The Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery or Corruption (CIABOC) carries the enforcement mandate.

Internationally, Sri Lanka depends on three channels: the Egmont Group, a network of more than 170 financial intelligence units enabling rapid information exchange without formal court orders; the World Bank–UNODC Stolen Asset Recovery Initiative (StAR), which provides forensic and legal technical support; and Mutual Legal Assistance Treaties (MLATs), the formal government-to-government mechanism for freezing or seizing assets abroad.

The Roadblock to Recovery

Tracing wealth through intelligence channels is comparatively fast. Repatriating it is not. Sri Lanka has historically struggled with slow-moving MLAT processes and the absence of a unified non-conviction-based asset forfeiture law — meaning that if a politician cannot be convicted domestically, their foreign assets often remain legally out of reach, regardless of how clearly intelligence has located them.

A Direct Appeal to the President

Mr President, during your time in opposition and throughout your presidential campaign, you repeatedly said that corrupt politicians had systematically funnelled Sri Lanka's wealth abroad, and you promised that recovering it would be a priority of your administration. The time to accelerate that process is now.

The public has welcomed CIABOC's current independence from political interference. But sources close to the Commission describe a persistent operational bottleneck: a shortage of staff, vehicles and modern equipment that limits how far its investigations can reach.

Your administration should move to strengthen CIABOC's budget, staffing and equipment through Parliament, and bring in international anti-corruption experts to provide forensic training and reinforce the legal branch's capacity to build prosecutable cases.

A Five-Phase Roadmap

Recovering these billions is beyond CIABOC's capacity alone. The StAR initiative is advisory rather than a policing body, so Sri Lanka must drive the process itself, in five stages:

Enforce the domestic legal framework. Before any foreign jurisdiction will freeze or return assets, Sri Lanka must establish that funds are proceeds of crime. Full use of the Proceeds of Crime Act No. 5 of 2025 would give CIABOC and the FIU the legal tools to track, freeze, manage and confiscate criminally acquired wealth.

Build a specialised inter-agency task force, drawing together CIABOC, the Police Crime Recovery Division, the Attorney General's Department and the Ministry of Justice to close bureaucratic gaps that currently slow cross-border cases.

Deepen financial tracing capacity, using StAR's forensic tools to unravel the layered shell companies, offshore accounts and real estate holdings used to hide state wealth.

Initiate Mutual Legal Assistance requests under the UN Convention against Corruption, with StAR's support in preparing court-ready asset-freezing petitions for foreign judiciaries.

Secure confiscation and repatriation, with StAR's policy guidance ensuring recovered funds are channelled transparently into public revenue rather than being misappropriated a second time.

Precedents Worth Following

Other countries have walked this path. The Philippines recovered more than $1 billion of wealth plundered by Ferdinand Marcos. Peru retrieved over $250 million hidden abroad by the corruption network built around former intelligence chief Vladimiro Montesinos. Angola froze and recovered hundreds of millions of dollars siphoned through state oil corruption and hidden in European accounts.

The legal frameworks exist. The international partnerships are ready. Mr President, the mandate the people gave you was for justice, not just governance. It is time to use every tool available to bring Sri Lanka's stolen wealth home.

We will soon release detailed evidence identifying the individuals responsible for the misappropriation of these funds.